How Do Media Audiences Respond to Media Products?Task 3 – Abygail Jones

Hypodermic Needle Model• This is the idea that, subtle/not so subtle

messages are put in to media products to get a desired reaction from the audience.

• This message is received, understood and accepted by the audience.

• This theory suggests a passive audience.

• As televisions and radio’s became increasingly popular throughout the 1940’s and 1950’s – it influenced behaviour changes in the viewers.

• The theory is largely disproved – such things have been published to prove this theory wrong: “The People’s Choice” written by Lazarsfeld, Berelson and Gaudet.

• http://www.utwente.nl/cw/theorieenoverzicht/Theory%20Clusters/Mass%20Media/Hypodermic_Needle_Theory/

Uses and Gratifications Theory

• This focuses on why the audience uses specific media sources by looking at things such as:

• The idea that people consume different types of media – what do they get from it?• How audiences spend their time/energy

finding the required media source?

• This theory suggests an active audience.

Uses and Gratification Theory• The theory began in 1944 with Herta Herzog

– she interviewed soap opera fans and identified three types of gratifications: Emotional, wishful thinking and learning.

• 1970 Abraham Maslow – Argued people looked to satisfy their needs based on hierarchy, hence the pyramid hierarchy theory. From bottom to top, Biological/physical, security/Safety, social/Belonging, Ego/Self-respect and Self-actualisation.

• 1969 – Jay Blumler and Denis McQuail – Studied why people watched political programmes, 1972 4 groups were created: Diversion, personal relationships, personal identity and surveillance.

Uses and Gratification Theory The theorists each came up with their own categories gratifications:

Harold Lasswell

• Surveillance• Correlation

• Entertainment• Cultural Transmission

Denis McQuail

• Information• Personal Identity• Integration and Social Interaction

Bulmer and Katz

• Diversion• Personal Relationships

• Personal Identity• Surveillance

Denis McQuail (1987) Why People use Media?

• His gratifications explained:

• Information: • Relevant events and conditions in immediate surroundings,

society and the world – e.g. the news.• Seeking advice on practical matters, opinions and decision

choices – e.g. Looking up the symptoms of an illness.• Satisfying curiosity and general interest – e.g. Googling something • Learning: Self-educating – e.g. learning a foreign language

• Personal Identity• Finding reinforcement for personal values – e.g. personally specific

media need – a gossip magazine (OK!).• Finding models of behaviour – e.g. changing your personality – being

more aggressive/confident online etc.• Identifying with valued other - e.g. having the same interest as

someone else, adopting their interest etc.

Denis McQuail Why People Use Media?

• Integration and Social Interaction:• Gaining insight into circumstances of others: social empathy e.g.

putting yourself in other people’s shoes and seeing the benefit/disadvantages of your life.

• Identifying with others and gaining a sense of belonging – e.g. having the same interests as a large group of people, feel safe, like you belong etc.

• Finding a basis for conversation and social interaction – e.g. Finding something in common with someone else i.e. liking Doctor Who.

• Having a substitute for real-life companionship – e.g. having a friend online/games/social networks etc.

• Entertainment• Escaping, or being diverted from problems – e.g. Using media to

distract yourself – reading a magazine during a panic attack/ watching TV when you’re ill etc.

• Relaxing – e.g. Playing games, reading, scrolling through Facebook, tumblr etc.

• Getting intrinsic cultural or aesthetic enjoyment – e.g. from a particular country/culture e.g. Navaho, finding something to relate to.

Why I Personally Interact with Media

• I use a range of media, from television to magazines:

• Information• I use tumblr religiously. I go on it to find out the latest news, information and

spoilers for upcoming TV series/films that I enjoy.• I also give advice and receive advice from other users who are having the

same issues as me.• I can’t usually control what I see, but if I’m curious about something, it’s

easy to find relevant information/pictures.• I learn a lot from tumblr. Whether it’s about something I’m interested in – or

something I’ve never even heard of before e.g. The Devil’s Tramping Ground.

• Personal Identity• I am a regular consumer of Kerrang! Magazine. I buy it because it’s a

magazine that applies to my personal needs – I want to find out what’s happening in the rock music world and this magazine enables me to do that.

• Online, media such as Facebook, I am a lot more confident than usual, I’ll talk to people I don’t really know and I’ll express my opinions freely.

• Integration and Social Interaction• Facebook and Tumblr are key media sources I use that make me use

social empathy, whether that’s putting myself in the shoes of less/more fortunate people – people who can’t afford expensive, items such as iPhone’s etc. and people who can.

• On Tumblr there are a range of groups that have similar interests to me, this enables me to carry out conversations with them and feel like I belong to a certain group.

• I substitute real-life companions a lot, the majority of my ‘friends’ are online and spread out across the country and in other countries as my social life is practically lifeless.

• Entertainment• I use YouTube, tumblr, Facebook, Kerrang! And other books to

distract myself from a lot of problems such as: interacting socially, family arguments etc.

Why I Personally Interact with Media

Reception Theory• This is looking at how audiences receive and interpret

media.

• The theory was developed by Stuart Hall, there are two parts: Encoding and Decoding:

Encoding: A media products producer fills it with a particular message. Celebrity gossip magazines are very good at this, they produce false accusations aiming it at celebrities wanting a desired reaction from their audience, usually shock or anger.

Decoding: This is where the audience receive the producers message and interprets the message: for example in the celebrity gossip magazine, if the anchoring captions are bad, the audience will unravel a truth and will learn that the problem is being emphasized by the publisher.

Hall’s Idea• The second part of the theory

concentrates on how the audience understands a media product:

• Hall’s idea is that the audience can interpret media text in different ways:

• Preferred: The reader receives, understands and agrees with the message in the product.

• Negotiated: The reader understands, somewhat accepts and then applies the products message to their own life.

• Oppositional: The reader understands the products message but rejects it, finding an alternative view.

• How they read and apply their ideas depends on their values, experiences and backgrounds – everyone is different and everyone has different ideas about the messages they receive.

Passive or Active Consumption• There are two different ways of interpreting a type of

audience/consumer and they are Passive or Active.

• Passive – They don’t apply their own ideas, they follow whatever the message tells them – the Hypodermic theory suggests passive audience.

• For example, when the original War of the World’s came out on the radio on October 30th 1938 – the audience heard that Martian’s had begun an invasion on Earth in a place called Grover’s Mill, New Jersey.

• The audience took this literally as an alien attack and fled from New Jersey, finding ‘safety’ in more rural areas, riots broke free and people raided stores.

• Active – They apply their own ideas, they hear what the message tells them and then they apply their own ideas to it. The Gratification and Reception theory suggests an active audience.

• For example: Kerrang magazine captions suggest something else is going on in the picture, they usually use humour to do this – making it out that what’s happening in the picture is funny, almost mocking the rock stars.

• Fans take this in to their own hands to interpret just what’s happening in the picture, if it’s a gig picture it’s pretty self explanatory etc.